Why can’t pharma companies fund guys like Ben Shapiro and fellow travellers to praise the vaccine?

They have been praising them to an extent. Unfortunately once you stoke a culture war issue it's hard to take it back. They tripled down on various forms of soft Corona denial last year and you can't undo that overnight.

Also my 👁 take is there is more profit to sell booster shots for various variants for the rest of time than if they had vaxxed the entire population and eliminated the virus.